[The following article is taken from the March 2 issue of the French-language fortnightly Inprecor, published in Paris. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
"The Soviet Union cannot remain indifferent to what is taking place in Poland." This little sentence is constantly repeated in a seemingly soothing manner, but it speaks volumes about the Soviet bureaucracy's nervousness. For more than six months the Soviet bureaucracy has been faced with a movement in Poland that, rather than dissipating, is deepening, reaching into all social layers, all areas of the country, into the furthest reaches of the countryside.
On February 9, 1981—the same day that the plenum of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers Party (PUWP-the Communist Party) placed General Jaruzelski at the head of the government, replacing Pinkowski-Piotr Abrassimov said in an interview on West German television that "all real Polish patriots state with fierce determination that Poland is and will remain an integral part of the great family of socialist countries."
If any "great family" is threatened, it is the family of Stalinist bureaucrats of all nationalities who, whatever their differences, always agree about lending a hand to a distant cousin whose privileges and power are threatened by the masses.
Over the past two months there have been an increasing number of Soviet statements on Poland. The number of communiqués, which alternate between declarations of "confidence in the Polish people" and more or less veiled threats of military intervention, are indicative of the Stalinist bureaucracy's great fear regarding the increasingly political demands the Polish working class is raising.
The Kremlin has less and less confidence in the ability of the current Polish grouping to withstand the waves that constantly break over it. It has reached the point where the initial Soviet "confidence" has been replaced by simple "hope" that the Polish people can solve this alone.
What bureaucrat could feel comfortable when not a day passes without its share of news on the latest personnel "changes," the latest "resignations," if not out and out firings of Polish local or national leaders accused of abusing their positions or incompetence. Especially when all this takes place simply because they can no longer keep the lid on reports of nepotism, petty arrangements, and big management errors, and when these gentlemen are found guilty by a population that knows what it is talking about.
The Polish leadership faces demands by the Polish working class that show increasingly clearly that the workers want to assume control of the situation in all arenas. The leadership also faces a crisis of questioning inside the PUWP itself, reaching into its highest levels.
In confronting this situation, the Polish leadership, which has been deeply shaken by the August 1980 explosion, is increasingly divided and unable to regain control through political means alone.
Since August, all the Warsaw Pact countries have simply been trying to control the damage. But the movement has spread, and its impact reaches far beyond the Polish borders. It has become an event of international scope, closely followed by newspapers, radio, and television throughout the world. This has increased the obstacles that the Soviets would confront if they decided to intervene.
The Soviets have to consider the breadth of the resistance they would meet, and therefore the number of troops who would be pinned down in Poland for what could be a long occupation.
They also have to weigh the consequences that an intervention would undoubtedly have on political and economic relations between the Warsaw Pact countries and the Western countries.
In addition, they would have to take into account that an intervention could possibly cause new splits within the "socialist" camp.
All these factors make the Soviets hesitate about making any decision to intervene.
Blowing Hot and Cold
"The Warsaw Pact member countries are convinced that the [Polish] United Workers Party, working class, and working people will be able to overcome their present problems.... Poland is and will remain a Socialist state, a link in the chain of Socialist countries. It can count on the solidarity and fraternal aid of the Socialist countries." This was the message of the communiqué issued after a summit meeting of leaders of the Warsaw Pact countries on December 5, 1980.
The newspapers in the Eastern European countries have featured countless statements of this type in recent months. We should note that the slightly threatening tone of these statements of friendship has alternated with another kind of more direct threat. In November and December the sound of military boots could be heard on Poland's borders. Troops were placed on a state of alert. And Polish television has broadcast films of "exercises" carried out by one or another unit in the border areas.
These additional warnings have not escaped the notice of the struggling Polish workers.
In addition, the East German and Czechoslovak governments have taken measures to limit travel between their countries and Poland.
Since October 1980, East Germany has required that East German or Polish citizens who want to visit the other country must have a personal invitation. For eight years prior to that, movement between the two countries had been unlimited, not even requiring a visa.
On November 20, 1980, as a way of limiting travel between Czechoslovakia and Poland, the Czechoslovak authorities imposed a requirement that people could only change Czech money for Polish zlotys once every ninety days.
These decisions show the lengths to which the authorities in the "people's democracies" are willing to go to establish a quarantine around Poland in order to prevent the Polish "disease" from spreading to their own workers.
The Moscow summit itself, despite the benign tone of the communiqué quoted earlier, could only be interpreted as a threat of "protection by force." It is, moreover, significant that it caused quite a stir in Poland immediately after. There were reports that the Warsaw Pact leaders had given the PUWP until the beginning of February to show that it could regain control over the situation.
This kind of psychological warfare is typical of the methods that the Soviets have been using for more than six months blowing hot and cold, alternating declarations of friendship with threats and political or economic pressures.
We should note that the summit declaration was unanimous. It was agreed to by all the Warsaw pact countries, including Romania, which had not attended a summit of this kind since 1968, and by Hungary, whose positions on the Polish situation differ somewhat from those of its neighboring states.
Searching for the 'Enemy'
"Different Communist countries have different opinions about the Polish crisis, reflecting a diversity in their historic relations and geographic proximity with that country," stated a Hungarian leader quoted in the International Herald Tribune on December 22, 1980.
But one of the fundamental problems they each have to face is the international character of the crisis and their inability to control the information that circulates. Therefore the leaders of the Warsaw Pact felt the need to close ranks and develop a common line for their respective parties. But this is difficult, given the different points of view put forward by the Soviet Union and Hungary on what is now a very important question: the role of the unions.
The December 26, 1980, Soviet daily Pravda stated, for example, that "in a socialist society, there is no social basis or reason for a political confrontation between the unions and the state. As a result, the unions do not need to resort to strikes or other extreme measures to defend the interests of the working class. ... The unions always act under the ideological and political leadership of the Communist Party and the workers parties."
In contrast, a report by Sandor Gaspar to the congress of Hungarian unions, also held in December, stated that "if the union participates, as the representative of the workers, in social power, it should not identify itself with the organizations of the state or party, nor be subordinated to these bodies."
It is not at all surprising, therefore, that at the Moscow summit, they had to reach agreement on the basis of the lowest common denominator—in this case denunciation of "antisocialist elements." And here too there are differences.
On December 8, 1980, the Soviet press agency Tass wrote that "several 'Solidarity" committees have begun a campaign to replace trade-union officials with individuals who hold firmly to antigovernmental positions. These facts, and many others, show that the counterrevolution has chosen to carry out progressive destabilization and to aggravate the political struggle."
But the Hungarian leaders, while claiming that certain forces in the West are encouraging the existence of antisocialist elements in Poland, at the same time place responsibility for the crisis on the authorities: "We are not looking for scapegoats in the other camp." This shows that even among the Warsaw Pact countries, "defense of socialism" does not have the same meaning everywhere.
The Western CPs
The Polish situation, following Afghanistan, has highlighted the crisis of the Stalinist movement-and its "Eurocommunist" current-by giving more publicity than ever to the divisions within it.
The Yugoslav and Chinese Communists point an accusing finger at the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which in turn criticizes the Italian Communist Party, which responds to attacks by the French Communist Party, which has just been blasted by the Chinese Communist Party.
Defense of "existing socialism" is a common theme that allows the Communist parties of the Warsaw Pact countries to maintain at least a minimal common position. But the same cannot be said of the Western CPs. While their ties to Moscow remain a decisive element of their political profile in distinguishing them from the social-democratic parties, defense of the Soviet model no longer plays the same role it did in the past.
Instead, their positions are determined largely by their relationship to the rest of the workers movement and the bourgeoisie in their own country. Mass CPs like those in Italy, Spain, and France do not determine their reaction to international events on the same basis as marginal CPs facing a ruling social-democratic party, like the Austrian CP.
The positions of the Western CPs share few common features. The small West German CP unconditionally follows the Soviet CP. The Italian CP maintains that the Polish crisis confirms its line of "Eurocommunism" and the "third road." The British CP and Swiss Party of Labor maintain embarrassed silence and restrict themselves to reprinting wire service dispatches.
Among the small Communist parties, like those in West Germany, Austria, or the United States, which remain dependent upon the Soviet Union for their very existence (especially on the material level), the West German CP distinguishes itself by the hysterical tone of its attacks against the "antisocialist" elements. It picks up and expands upon the most virulent commentaries from East Germany and Czechoslovakia.
The Democratic Chorus
The parties that view themselves to one or another degree as part of the "Eurocommunist" current approach the question from a different angle. The Italian, Spanish, Belgian, Finnish, Swedish, British, Mexican, and Japanese CPs begin by acknowledging the undeniable economic bankruptcy of the ousted Edward Gierek leadership. They all agree that the main problem is related to the lack of democracy. This is a common feature of all of them.
In their battle to score points against the social democracy, many of these CPs face the problem of overcoming the "Stalinist" label, which tends to repel the mass of workers in the Western countries and evokes visions of bureaucratic and authoritarian methods.
Many of these parties also try to play down the attacks against the "internal and external enemies," preferring to stress the past errors of the Polish leadership.
Several things are evident in the statements of these "liberal" CPs. One is the stress they place on the danger of any prolonged confrontation between the working class and the Polish bureaucracy. At each compromise they breathe a sigh of relief.
Another obvious feature of their coverage is the total absence of any perspectives regarding the forms through which workers can really take control over their affairs, whether in the East or West.
A Mexican CP communiqué in late August 1980 stated: "Far from having to be viewed as a sickness of socialism, the strikes could on the contrary consolidate the construction of a new system." But the Mexican party did not develop this point further.
All these CPs vigorously oppose any perspective of Soviet intervention. Their constant incantation is: "The Poles must solve their problems themselves." But very few report directly on the views of Solidarity members in their press, leading one to believe that none of their members has visited Poland since the August strikes began.
As a result, there is no explanation of the discussions going on in the independent unions, and no indication of the solutions that the workers themselves are putting forward. But this would be far more instructive for their readers than a series of articles commenting on developments "at the top," generally taken from the bourgeois press agencies.
While it is true that these CPs appear quite resolute on the question of Soviet intervention, the main reason is that an intervention would deal a blow to the image of the kind of socialism they claim to put forward. They are more concerned with that than with the real interests of the Polish workers.
The Swedish Communist Party tends to go a little further than the others in its analyses. Acknowledging that the strike movement has a directly political dimension in addition to its economic side, Ny Dag, the Swedish CP daily, stated on August 20, 1980: "The workers are demanding democratization of society and greater participation in solving national affairs. These are justified demands, and the only fruitful response is the introduction of structural reforms that have both an economic and political character."
Ny Dag goes on to say that workers' participation in decision-making must not be solely restricted to production, but must also be concerned with the distribution of profits, which could only take place through institutional forms," although the paper does not say what those forms might be.
The Spanish and Italian Communist parties have on several occasions carried superprogressive reports on the struggle of the Polish workers. The Spanish CP has gone so far as to challenge some of the traditional CP dogmas. But in doing so, these parties end up highlighting the bankruptcy of the "Eurocommunist" current. There is an immediate and obvious contradiction between the speeches in support of the Polish workers and the way these parties operate in practice in their own countries, and this contradiction can become explosive.
Carrillo's Theoretical Daring
Since the struggle in Poland began, Spanish CP leader Santiago Carrillo has maintained that the struggle does not stem solely from economic difficulties. It stems, he says, "perhaps also from the existence of a political system in which people do not feel that their leaders really listen to them."
Basing himself on the views of the new PUWP leadership, Carrillo makes a very positive assessment of the Gdansk accords, and salutes in passing the moderate role the church played in this affair.
Regarding the role of the elements accused of "antisocialism," Carrillo stated in Mundo Obrero on September 19, 1980: "It would be an aberration to view events of the depth and strength of those we have witnessed in Poland, or on previous occasions, as basically resulting from the enemy's activities. Above all they are the product of real contradictions, of the real and deepgoing malaise that exists among the workers."
Carrillo draws the following conclusion: "The events in Poland are confirming the Eurocommunist thesis that socialism must effectively apply, not restrict, democracy." (Statement to the press reprinted in the September 3, 1980 French daily Le Monde.)
He goes further, however, than these simple considerations in the Mundo Obrero article of September 19, 1980. [See box.] He attempts to lay out the fundamental causes that lead workers in a country dominated by collective ownership of the means of production, to nonetheless see themselves as deprived of any power on the political level. Of all the "Eurocommunists" who have dealt with this question, Carrillo is the only one, to our knowledge, to have so explicitly posed the question of the state as the central problem.
Nevertheless, several weeks later this same Santiago Carrillo reacted like a real bureaucrat against the questioning within the CP in Catalonia, which led to ousting the former (majority Eurocommunist leadership of the Catalan party congress in Barcelona.
He is the one who tried to push through a special congress-against the wishes of the new leadership of the Catalan CP [PSUC] _"so that the PSUC will regain its features and image." His commentaries on democracy in the Eastern European countries are nothing more than words, which is what he reproaches the bureaucrats of the Eastern European countries for.
But the tensions that have begun to be expressed inside the Andalusian and Basque Communist parties following what happened in Catalonia-and the resignation of some Andalusian leaders whose political orientation and bureaucratic methods were challenged by the ranks, shows that the members of the Communist Party in Spain are not indifferent to the consequences of the Carrillo leadership's policies, and that they are determined to dismantle that leadership in order to make their voices heard.
In this sense, the question of Poland cannot help but be a test for the various currents confronting each other within the Spanish CP.
Italian CP Threatens to Break with Moscow
The contradiction that the Spanish CP leadership finds itself in is perhaps even more evident in the case of the Italian CP, which was the first and most determined CP in stating that it would break with Moscow if the Soviets intervened militarily in Poland.
"The Italian Communist Party could not help but draw all the consequences from an outside intervention and use of force against Poland," the CP daily L'Unità stated on December 10, 1980, on the occasion of Vladimir Zagladine's visit to Rome. Giorgio Napolitano stated that an intervention would have "irreparable consequences."
The Italian CP began with a rather cautious approach to the events. Its Central Committee made an appeal to the Central Committee of the PUWP to respect the working class' freedom to organize. It later hailed the fact that the PUP has "not condemned the strikers" and expressed hope for a rapid solution to the conflict.
But later the tone hardened and the Italian CP leadership again found itself involved in a polemic with the USSR and with the French CP, which accused it of supporting the "counterrevolutionaries."
What did the Italian CP say that was so shocking, aside from its opposition to any intervention? It said that the Polish crisis revealed an absense of democracy not only in Poland but in all the countries of Eastern Europe. It said it supported the right of the workers to organize in independent unions, as well as their demand for the right to strike.
Other CPs had said the same things before or after. But in this case it was being said by the largest Communist Party in Western Europe. The Kremlin has to take the Italian party, and the impact of its positions, into account in the course of international relations, as it must with the positions of the French and Spanish CPs.
Furthermore, the Spanish CP—despite some slightly more daring theoretical considerations by Carrillo—was not so up front in blaming the Soviet Union. Its press has not gone so far as to publish articles favorable to the Committee for Social Self-Defense (KOR), as the Italian CP weekly Rinascita did in November 1980: "Established as the Committee to Defend the Workers, the KOR later took on a more political structure, adopting a minimum program to try to develop 'independent institutions'.... Today, many of its members think the time has come to change society (while respecting the political situation of the country and its socialist character) toward greater democracy
and pluralism. This is the program... that two young Communists, Jacek Kuron and Karol Modzelewski, had put forward in their 'Open Letter to the Polish Workers Party' in 1964."
The Spanish CP has also not engaged in a direct polemic with the CPs of the Warsaw Pact on how to view the "instigators of anarchy." In a report to the Central Committee of the Italian CP, published in L'Unità on December 18, 1980, Bufalini stated: "It is to be expected that the aspirations of the vast popular masses are first manifested even through tumultuous events.... One cannot look for an enemy of socialism in each dissident."
Finally, when discussing the causes that led to the present crisis, the Italian CP does not just point to the usual considerations regarding the economic problems and the lack of democracy. L'Unità explicitly talks about the repressive policy regarding the church.
These are a number of elements that cannot please the Soviets. But one thing should reassure Moscow. That is the profoundly reformist vision and the prudent manner with which the Italian CP press approaches the question of how changes should be put into effect-by stages, without upsetting anyone.
The "Eurocommunist" line that Italian CP leader Enrico Berlinguer is so proud to find confirmed in the Polish crisis, is clearly expressed by his recommendation that the "workers movement [should] be led toward a greater economic and political co-responsibility, taking into account the difficult phase the country's economy is going through." (L'Unità, December 12, 1980.)
On the other hand, while the Italian CP leadership questions the dominant monolithism in the East, it never stresses for good reason-that the interests of the bureaucracy and those of the workers are radically contradictory. It never says that "exercising power" means—for the working class—exercising direct control over the economic and political decision-making on a national scale. It never indicates by what paths it is possible to move in that direction. It never lets the principals concerned, the members of Solidarity, speak for themselves.
The Italian CP press restricts itself to solemn declarations regarding the need to establish a separation between the party, the state, and the unions, without of course raising the question of self-management or workers councils.
None of this is surprising for a leadership whose entire problem in its own country is how to win acceptance for a line that advocates that the workers should take a "responsible" attitude toward the capitalist measures to deal with the economic crisis through restructuring the economy, a leadership that advocates the establishment of an authoritarian government in Italy to put an end to the "disorder."
The Italian CP does all this while simultaneously trying to maintain its hold on the Italian workers, while guarding its image as the number one workers party, the party that "fights for democracy."
Enrico Berlinguer's entire policy—-trying to make the Italian CP an "independent" party with regard to Moscow, his special relations with China and Yugoslavia, his flirtation with François Mitterrand and other leaders of the social-democracy-are all aimed at making the CP appear to be a credible governmental party. But they would have little weight in maintaining the cohesion of the party in the face of the earthquake that a Soviet intervention in Poland would provoke in the Italian CP and other CPs. This, in large part, explains the lack of consistency in the line adopted on the Polish question.
We should, however, note that the line put forward on Poland by CP members within the Italian General Confederation of Labor (CGIL) is a positive factor that should not be underestimated. This policy was expressed by the dispatch of a united trade-union delegation to Poland in late August and it made it possible to organize a united welcome for the Solidarity leaders in December in Rome.
Moreover, the position adopted by the Italian CP, along with those of the Spanish CP and other "Eurocommunist" parties, is an obstacle to Soviet intervention and, in the final analysis, works in favor of the Polish working class in that it wins them some time and lets them move ahead in organizing themselves.
But, aside from this, the Polish workers can expect little from leaders who, in their own countries, apply a line that, to say the least, does not arm the workers against their class enemy.
French CP on a Tightrope
The French Communist Party, in turn, hardly describes itelf as "Eurocommunist" any longer. It would like people to think that it has different perspectives than its Italian and Spanish neighbors. The systematic campaign it is waging against the French Socialist Party's "turn to the right," party chief Georges Marchais's tough talk, the denunciations of "big business" (to which the CP counterposes the slogan of "let's increase French production"), are all an attempt to give it the image of a "more revolutionary" party.
But in this regard the workers at Manufrance and other factories can testify that the CP's line remains, as in the past, a line of class collabortion.
Despite these underlying similarities, Enrico Berlinguer and Georges Marchais divided on the question of Poland, as they had on Afghanistan. Not that Marchais would favor a Soviet intervention in Poland. When he is asked about this, he says he does not think it will happen and reaffirms the French CP's position that "it is up to the Polish people, their government, the PUWP, and only them, to carry through the reforms." He does not say whether he would oppose an intervention if one took place.
But the way in which the French CP continually refers back to the PUP and the Soviet CP in commenting on the Polish crisis shows the close ties that Marchais wants to maintain with the Communist parties of the Warsaw Pact countries.
Not only did the French CP daily Humanité unreservedly support Edward Gierek during the entire conflict and up to his resignation (as did the majority of the Western CPs), not only did the paper focus all its energies in that period on attacking the "antisocialists," but three days after the Gdansk agreements we heard a leader of the French party stress in a television interview the absence of unemployment, the rise in living standards of up to 50 percent, and the opening of a dialogue without a word about the content of the agreements or the demands of the strikers.
When it had to change its coverage, after the accords, the leadership of the French CP hailed the agreement as a "victory for democracy." Nevertheless, it remained totally silent about Solidarity for weeks, and tried to maintain the confusion between that mass organization and the so-called "new independent unions" (branch unions) put forward by the bureaucracy to try to stop the growth of Solidarity. In this regard l'Humanité followed the line the Polish press was putting forward during the entire month of September and into October.
This desire to minimize Solidarity's role was further seen much later in the report that three General Confederation of Labor (CGT) leaders gave about their visit to Poland in early January 1981, in which they stressed that "Solidarity is not the only trade-union force." The three union leaders, who are also CP officials, did all they could to give credence to the idea of "trade-union pluralism" by talking about the fifty-seven other unions outside of Solidarity, and claiming that the branch unions have 5 million members.
Based on the French CP's view of the "overall positive balance sheet of the Communist regimes," for all those months the party press congratulated itself that "the leading role of the party has not been challenged." Except, of course, by the "antisocialist elements," for whom it reserved all it venom.
In fact, l'Humanité loyally reproduced all the attacks against "fomenters of anarchy" and Solidarity that have appeared in the Soviet as well as the Polish press. By contrast, it has given minimal space in six months to the views of Solidarity members.
In its polemic with the Italian CP, the French party very specifically shows its desire not to be viewed as part of those who sow trouble and give credence to "the idea that there is an external threat to Poland." However, just as the Italian CP's thundering declarations against intervention barely conceal its anxiety not to break with the "home office," the French CP's professions of loyalty to the "Communist camp" barely conceal its nervousness regarding Soviet intervention.
Whatever the sectarianism the French CP has exhibited in recent months regarding other currents in the workers movements, the CP nonetheless is worried about its results in the upcoming French elections. This is seen in the indirect appeals for calm that show through the headlines of l'Humanite's articles on Poland, and the little tightrope act it carries out on this question.
In contrast to the Italian CP, which faces a very small social-democratic party, the French CP knows that its ability to cut into the SP's vote totals would be fundamentally undercut if it had to take responsibility for a Soviet intervention. That is why it prefers to state, against all evidence, that "they have no reason to intervene!" This is also why it avoids publicly stating what its attitude would be if there were an intervention.
In addition, although the CP leadership more or less voluntarily provoked the departure of many intellectual members, and undoubtedly even more rank-and-file members, who disagree with the positions the CP has adopted in recent months on the questions of immigration and drugs, the CP leaders are especially afraid of the ravaging effects that a Soviet intervention in Poland would have within its own ranks.
An intervention would undoubtedly increase the audience of oppositionists who
are trying to prevent the CP leadership from maintaining that it expresses the views of all Communists. Although many party members could accept even against their better judgment-the position adopted regarding Afghanistan, there is no doubt that thousands of members would quit the party if a Soviet intervention occurred and the leadership did not take a clear position in condemnation.
No matter how it was motivated, a Soviet intervention in Poland would have profound repercussions within the ranks of CPs in the East and the West.
It would have major repercussions within the CPs of the Warsaw Pact and other "socialist" countries, because they undoubtedly would be confronted with movements of solidarity with the Polish working class, which everyone expects would fiercely resist an intervention and because there is every reason to believe that an intervention would strengthen the opposition currents inside as well as outside the ruling CPs.
And the Western CPs especially the "Eurocommunist" parties would be affected because an intervention would wipe out the desperate efforts that they have been making for years to reconcile the irreconcilable: remaining within the "socialist camp" and continuing to hold to peaceful coexistence without challenging the theory of "socialism in one country," while also trying to present themselves as parties that defend democracy, pluralism, "another socialism."
February 18, 1981
'A Bureaucratic Layer Leads and Decides'
In a report to the Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Spain in Madrid on September 8-9, 1980, Santiago Carrillo stated:
"We have always criticized the formal aspects of bourgeois democracy, but we cannot close our eyes to a reality: [in Poland] socialist democracy is basically democracy in form, democracy in the books, but nonexistent in reality. A bureaucratic layer leads and decides in the name of the working class, but without basing itself on that class. One cannot say that the working class as such has power just because those who lead are members of the Communist Party.
"The unions are transformed into transmission belts of the state, and I think that it is the same thing in terms of the party. The regime ends up no longer being an instrument of the party and the unions, of the working class and the people, to lead the revolution well: A technocracy and a state bureaucracy arise that transform the party and the unions into simple gears of the state apparatus, through which it exercises its control over the working class and people....
"The abolition of capitalist property, the reforms in the social sphere such as culture and health, that these systems have carried out, undoubtedly constitute great progress in the direction of socialism, but they have still not reached socialism much less the beginning of communism.
"The truth is that in these countries the worker does not feel like the real owner of the means of production. The means of production belong to the state and the worker still does not consider that state to be his own thing."
'We are Concerned by the Threat of Intervention'
In the August 27, 1980, issue of the Italian Communist Party daily L'Unità, party leader Giuseppe Boffa stated,
"While a number of the problems posed are specific to Poland, one would have to be naive and not very clearsighted to see this as a purely Polish phenomenon....
This makes it necessary that the societies of Eastern Europe, their leadership mechanisms, and their methods of internal communications evolve, of course gradually, but in a real sense. This is a problem that does not date from today and that must not be forgotten."
On August 29, two days later, the Soviet Communist Party daily Pravda wrote, "It should be noted that some of the statements of our Italian friends can only lead to prejudicing the atmosphere of cooperation that we spoke of in our joint communiqué of 1978."
The next day L'Unità responded, "The concerns regarding East-West tensions could not and still cannot lead us to pass over in silence certain policies of the USSR, which has underestimated the problems and difficulties of the countries of 'existing socialism,' which the Polish events of the last weeks show in a disquieting way."
On December 10, an editorial in L'Unità declared, "We are convinced that it would be the worst form of shortsightedness to consider the pursuit and definition of a socialism that is different from the one that has been in place up to now as an attack against socialism.... That is why we are very concerned by the threat of military intervention. We are also concerned because we think that even the simple hypothesis of such an intervention, as it is now being discussed, is an intolerable attack on the sovereignty of Poland."